Resource: Hacking Poetry with Makey Makey

Last spring I hacked poetry month with pencil drawings, Scratch Programming, and Makey Makey. Then this fall for the SLJ Summit, Aaron and I led a few brave librarians through the process of hacking poetry with Makey Makey. What I love about this activity, is that by having students visualize poetry with drawings, they think deeper about the poetry. But even better, by having to record their own reading of the poem in Scratch, students actually spend quality time reading and re-reading poetry lines and begin to correctly intonate words and phrases to portray the poem’s mood. I taught ELA for almost a decade and rarely saw students recite poetry with such enthusiasm! I think that by recording their voice in Scratch, and playing that reading through their own drawings, this process makes students want to attempt to add the right pausing and inflections.

^^This post was sparked by this tweet today! ^^ I love to see public libraries partnering with school libraries as a way to bring Maker Education to schools. I’d never have been able to teach my students to solder if it hadn’t been for the Denton Public Library! Plus, I love to be able to share my own expertise with the community (like when I taught a sewing circuitry workshop at the public library.)

Partnering with the public library is not only a great way to extend your budget, it’s also what the Maker Movement is about- Collaborating and seeking help from experts when needed.

I can’t wait to see what happens at Salmon High School when Salmon Public Library helps students Hack Poetry with Makey Makey!

Share your own Makey Makey poetry with #makeymakeypoetry on Twitter or Instagram! I’ll collect your examples to display on this post!

Three word stories with Scratch and Makey Makey from Ricarose and The Tinkering Studio! First post about this workshop is great too: Read it here. (I know, this isn’t really poetry, but this three word story idea could easily be hacked for a poetry workshop!)